Latest On Human Rights Campaign

The nation’s largest LGBT rights group takes on the high-end department store over a conflict between the store’s policies and a legal position it is taking against transgender employment protections. [Update: The company won’t say if it stands by the December court filing.]

Battles over local nondiscrimination ordinances, from small towns in Kentucky to big cities like Houston, often get personal when neighbors come face-to-face with disparities in the law for LGBT people.

“I want every City employee to know one thing — your work is valued and you are important to the future of our community,”said the city’s mayor, Andy Berke — who supported the ordinance — in the wake its repeal.

The archdiocese suggested the contract isn’t much different from ones used in prior years, but the Human Rights Campaign called the changes “draconian” and “extreme.” Teachers who back LGBT rights also risk firing.

NARAL picked a fight with the White House over the nomination of Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs to the federal bench earlier this month. On Thursday the group announced a broad coalition of progressives are supporting it.

Billionaire backers of LGBT rights join activists and politicians for an event that wasn’t officially included in the World Economic Forum in Davos. “It’s not cool to be anti-gay,” hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb told the event.

Global LGBTI activists worry HRC’s new international initiative could run roughshod over local partners and are concerned that it is partly funded by vulture fund money. “It is not money that should used by anyone for LGBTI work any side of the world. It’s an insult,” said one activist.

“NBCUniversal … has a unique opportunity — and a responsibility — to expose this inhumane and unjust law to the millions of American viewers who will tune in to watch the Games,” HRC president writes to the company that will broadcast the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Most Americans say they favor an executive order banning workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians, according to a poll sponsored by a gay rights group. Conservatives and liberals alike back the workplace measure, as the terrain shifts.